Resources for Worship, Leadership, and Congregational Health

February 2012

February 21, 2012

Here's some fun facts about the United Church of Canada that you can use to amaze and amuse your friends (Click here to download and Adobe PDF version of this post):

Of those who particiapte in a program or activity, the majority:

Attend a congregation with worship attendance of 85 or more.

Attend a Sunday School with a membership of 37 or more.

Attend a CE program with a membership of 105 or more.

Attend a women's group program with a membership of 26 or more.

Attend a congregation with a resident membership of 204 or more.

Attend a congregation with local givers of 118 or more.

Attend a congregation with M&S givers of 60 or more.

Note: Only 136 congregations meet all of these criteria. 880 meet at least one.

The largest 10% of United Church congregations have:(320 congregations with worship attendance of 133 or more)

27% of our total worship attendance.

28% of our total Sunday School membership.

33% of our total CE membership.

23% of our total women's groups membership.

27% of our total resident membership.

25% of our total local givers.

28% of our total M&S givers.

Of the 10 congregations with the largest worship attendance:

2 are in Vancouver-Burrard Presbytery (St. Andrew's-Wesley and West Vancouver) (And they are in Canada's least religious, most secular region.)

1 is in Victoria Presbytery (First-Metropolitan)

Timothy Eaton Memorial in Toronto has the largest attendance, 540.

Of our total 3,196 congregations:

Slightly less than 50% are in One-Point Pastoral Charges, and

Slightly more than 50% are in Multi-point Pastoral Charges.

Multiple-Point Pastoral Charges make up slightly more than 50% of all Congregations but only about 25% members, worship attendance, Sunday School members, etc.

There are about the same number of members, worship attendance, Sunday School members, etc. in the 320 largest 10% of congregations as there are in the 1,661 congregations in Multiple-Point Pastoral Charges.

For Single-Point Pastoral Charges, sorted from largest to smallest for each of the categories below, here's what a congregation is like.

Single-PointPC's

Worship Attendance

Sunday School Membership

CE Program Membership

Women's Membership

Resident Membership

Number of Local Givers

Number of M&S Givers

First 10%

175 to 540

73 to 437

170 to 1,315

60 to 273

394 to 1,391

250 to 1,118

128 to 530

Second 10%

126 to 175

48 to 73

104 to 168

40 to 60

289 to 394

188 to 250

88 to 128

Third 10%

104 to 126

37 to 48

70 to 103

30 to 40

229 to 289

148 to 187

65 to 88

Fourth 10%

81 to 103

28 to 37

50 to 70

24 to 30

176 to 228

119 to 147

51 to 65

Fifth 10%

66 to 81

22 to 28

35 to 70

19 to 24

133 to 175

95 to 118

39 to 50

Sixth 10%

53 to 66

17 to 22

24 to 35

14 to 19

100 to 133

76 to 95

29 to 39

Seventh 10%

40 to 52

12 to 17

15 to 24

10 to 14

75 to 100

56 to 76

20 to 29

Eight 10%

29 to 40

7 to 12

8 to 15

6 to 10

51 to 75

41 to 56

13 to 20

Ninth 10%

18 to 29

0 to 7

0 to 8

0 to 6

29 to 51

24 to 40

6 to 13

Tenth 10%

0 to 18

0

0

0

0 to 29

0 to 24

0 to 6

You can see where your congregation fits by going down each column and circling the square that has your range.

Visit www.davidewart.ca to see this and other reports on the United Church of Canada.